


Interrogation

by styra



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, written after ep 127
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 03:03:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18460154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/styra/pseuds/styra
Summary: Jon dreams.





	Interrogation

**Author's Note:**

> beta'ed, thanks to jm godmother julie4697
> 
> basically a collection of scenes that i want to read but can't write entire fics for them

 

 

A low humming sound. It's a distant buzzing noise to him in the brink of slumber. Then he realizes that it is Martin singing, sitting beside him. The assistant is somehow completely content about flying across the Atlantic Ocean despite the recent occurrences of statements on the vast.

“Oh, sorry. Did I wake you up?” Martin pulls up the blanket and carefully tucks him in. “You should go back to sleep. We're only halfway across.”

While Jon doesn't feel like he is losing consciousness, his eyelids feel heavy. He slumps further back into the seat.

 

 

 

The smell comes to him first. He slowly blinks his eyes to find himself sitting in front of a neatly made table, decorated with an opaque vase in the shape of a hand, holding a single flower that's severely rotting away, emitting an unmistakable stench. With dazed disgust, he unfolds his napkin to cover the lower half of his face. Martin is smiling sheepishly at him across the table. He can't recognize what kind of flower it is. It deteriorates into mere lumps of unclean black on the linen.

He drifts his gaze onto the next table, where a gentleman is being rapidly swallowed by a soup bowl; his head plunged neck deep into the spelunking journey. He is desperately clinging to the tablecloth trying to hold back the rest of his body from joining the encounter to no avail. A lady at the same table is trying frantically and unceremoniously to pierce the popping figures on her plate. When she shoves the undead food off the dish during the process, the twisted bits of flesh quickly disappear below the table with a faint screech, dragging their miniature fangs.

“Martin?” He hears himself calling, staring at the endless stream of things dropping and crawling in beneath the table. He can't see what's happening behind the long white fabric covering the sides of it, but the chomping noises are definitely coming from below, not above.

The answer comes readily. “Yes, Jon?”

“Are we here to be eaten?”

Martin chuckles at the joke, his laugh like fluttering butterflies—they fly towards Jon in a swift motion but soon falter through the air, and before reaching him quickly decompose into chunks of dead insect meat, which then falls beside the remains of the flower. Jon turns his head to the eager face staring back at him.

Martin blushes. “I hope you enjoy it.”

The waiter nods with a missing jaw, serving their order. Jon looks down on his plate to see a relatively normal lobster, stark red. For a moment he waits to see if the lobster would pick up the fork beside it and stab his finger. But nothing changes except that Martin's expression is now becoming even more pleading. He slices the sea animal's belly open to reveal a myriad of small eyes populating the space.

“Bit dull, I know. I thought you'd like it, though.” Jon thinks he could vomit. Instead, he finds himself yawning. He can hear the wet eyeballs stuffed inside the dish rolling themselves. Martin's already standing beside him by the time he rubs away the tears.

“You're tired. I should have known.”

Sleep pours like heavy rain, and Jon has to wonder for a moment if the diner's ceiling is intact, if something's creeping in. Only there are elegant crystal chandeliers over his head, casting bright warm lights onto the floor sticky with blood. Then Martin is supporting him, an arm over his shoulder. They pass between the busy tables, occupied with some food dining on a guest or a guest dining on a guest, decorated with suspiciously alive and questionably edible ornaments. Soon he departs the morbid yet ordinary atmosphere and lands outside, feet unstable on the dim street.

“Let's get you home.” Martin carefully pushes Jon into the cab.

“But I have to go to the Archive,” Jon mumbles incoherently.

“You need to rest, Jon. You can't be awake all the time.”

The door shuts, white noise from the diner cuts out, and his consciousness goes before it can muster another thought; his head nestled against the assistant’s shoulder.

 

 

 

It hurts, Jon thinks as his head bumps into the wooden edge of a pew. He readjusts his position to not have that happen again. It would have been hard to do if he were being dragged in haste, the friction carelessly and painfully grazing his back through the shirt; but the rider-less horse, only recognizable by the sound of its footsteps, is marching forward in a slow pace, its gait solemnly strained as if the steps were cut into hundreds of sub-steps, too intent, too focused to slip.

The congregation whispers in distress, if not hatred, as he is being moved through the aisle; it’s too dark to see them, although as he passes the crossing, the faint light scattering from the main window above the sanctuary is enough to make out the robed shapes beside the altar.

Jon rests his head momentarily on the cold marble when the carrier stops and lets out a confused groan. Then he sits up and reaches down in an attempt to untie himself from the rope.

“The condemned one has arrived,” one of the priests announces. “Hail our lord and savior.”

A flock of altar boys and girls scurry down to where he’s sprawled and frees him from the knot; each of them carrying a small ritual dagger. As the children push him onto the sanctuary he thinks he recognizes a face among them—docile and attentive. Dull awe washes over him while the priests preach the mass, until a gentle pull positions him behind the altar, right across the obscure crowd.

“The executioner is at hand.” The boy steps forward, clenching the knife, and offers him a cup after taking a sip himself. Jon stares at the young, oblivious glimpse of the assistant and not the void in front of him. His mouth itches and he opens it, only to be interrupted.

“He dare looked down upon us, skinned our secrets bare,” A priest lays out the accusations in a high tone. “And excavated the dark from its sound sleep.” She adds, “We shall uncrown the thief, and never will we be seen.”

In a moment of sudden clarity, Jon knocks off the offered drink of peace and rushes to the side; which is quickly revealed a mistake, as where the light ends, darkness awaits to smother him. He turns around to face his executioner, and in his peripheral thick veins of deep red are spiraling into the shadow behind him.

“We all walk into our own coffin someday.”

Her words sound more pained than in record, somewhat distant and never soft, but gritty with cold determination. After a moment of silence, her presence dissipates violently into a blast of convoluted curses, swiveling back into the darkness. Jon frowns in anticipation at the meek face approaching, not knowing if the tremble in the dagger is from anxiety or hesitation.

“It’ll be okay,” The boy makes an awkward, apologetic smile. “It’ll be just like sleeping.” As if Jon is a small animal waiting to be butchered.

The darkness and the assurance ease him to close his eyes.

 

 

 

It takes some time until Jon notices himself lying on the ground because everything is dark and very still. He knows, however, the firm land against the back of his hand. He acknowledges a cold swift breeze, passing along the cool air and the sound of somebody shoveling the ground near him. He can't move an inch, trapped inside his own body. If he could see, he would see the sky, and he knows it to be changing from crimson red to quiet purple, choked fire giving its way to the night. The digger stops digging and kneels by the Archivist.

“I'm sorry I couldn't save you.” Jon knows he says this. Then the person carefully lifts his body down into a rectangular pit. He probably should scream and tell the person that _I am not a corpse,_ but his words do not reach him. Neither does the look on the man’s face reach Jon.

After the field is made flat without a trace of an opening, the person kneels down once again and kisses the dirt softly.

“I'm sorry I let it happen again.” The utterance has the undertone of muted grief, or the lack of it, the words like shallow scrawls long gone washed away on the shore. And he walks away to where Jon cannot know his footsteps.

The underground is pleasant but quiet, maybe too quiet for the Archivist’s taste, only the insentient worms and germs swirling through the still lives: _not worthy of record._ Encapsulated and sealed, his frustrated mind seeks for an escape— _If only there was a door._

Then he’s falling through one.

 

 

 

Jon lands on a pile of statements with a simple thump. As he gathers himself he recognizes the place that is his office, the institute. The pile seems like it was pushed out from the cabinets around the room forced open, the desk in disarray. He leaves the office in a mild confusion to check if another outbreak—natural or supernatural—has been going on. He doesn’t sense any change for a while except that nobody’s in the institute. At the end of the corridor, though, he looks back, and with a disconcerting presentiment starts to count the doors. There are too many of them.

He counts again. They grow in number, refusing to be finite. Then his attention snaps to the sound of a door opening. Someone appears from one of the new doors and heads to the stairway.

“Martin?” The assistant saunters away without a greeting, drawing a perplexed cry out of Jon. “Wait! _Where are you going?_ ”

Jon immediately halts, chastising himself for using the compulsion, only to meet the unexpected silence. He flurries down the stairs to catch up; but warped and elongated, the stairway is too long, longer than he ever knew them to be, the next step too far away, and there is really no way he can bridge the gap between them. He keeps walking down, however, until the twists and turns in the tracks become too disorienting to define his own coordinates.

 

 

 

When he becomes aware of his surroundings again, he is standing in the forest—amidst the army of trees. The sky is darkening into an ominous hue, and it would be a stupid move to ignore that cue. He could trace his footsteps back out to safety if he tried. But he smells something burning, the smoke choking and luring him in helplessly, a detective on a lead, or a leash. Between the dense pillars of plants, someone looms over a bonfire, facing away from him. Sight foggy from the pain, Jon struggles to launch himself forward but keels over after a few feet, heaving weakly. He crawls with his hand throbbing, the burnt mark coming back alive.

“Martin, Ma—” Another pang of agony strikes him mercilessly in the chest, making him bleed his tears out. “Please, Martin— _please_ ,”

Footfalls get nearer, and a firm hand reaches down to grab him up. “Oh, Jon, are you alright?”

By the time Jon’s head rests in Martin’s lap beside the fire, his entire body is numb, only the occasional jolt and sharp inhaling breath indicative of the torment piercing through him.

“ _Can you stop?_ ” The Archivist begs, sobbing. “ _You are burning me._ ”

“It has to be done.” He so gently wipes the tears away for him. “It’s for your own good. I’m so sorry, Jon.”

The flame sways over the heap of fuel—white office papers, thick books in leather binding, old parchments carrying hieroglyphs, and tapes. And behind the fire, ashes, and ashes, and ashes. Martin hums a lullaby— _to ease the pain_ , he thinks—and the melody soothes him into sleep, the lines of the stave wrapping the limbs like threads of wool.

 

 

 

He rubs his eyes open. The ache is fading rapidly, like a shadow under a rising sun, despite that the light is still dim in the cabin. The seat belt sign isn’t on. Martin looks at him, worried. A wet handkerchief is in his hand.

“You were crying in sleep.”

“I… had a dream. _A bad dream_.” _You made me eat eyes. You executed me. You buried me. You went away and left me alone. Then you were burning me and it hurt so much._

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“No, I’m quite alright now. It was just a dream.” He shakes his head.

“It’s okay to be afraid, Jon. Our situation isn’t exactly a bed of roses.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Yeah, well.” Martin sighs. “Fairchild and his goons sure aren’t afraid of heights.”

Jon remains silent, unable to tear his mind away from the eerie dreams he just had, the melody stuck in his head. _Martin was humming it too._

“Martin, did you—” Then the veil, or something resembling it, wavers in the air, and as he sees through it, the whole cabin is empty. He frowns in confusion, and anger fills his throat when he remembers who’s not supposed to be sitting beside him.

“Jon? What’s the matter?” The voice no longer Martin's crackles in a cacophony.

“ _Is this a dream?_ ” The Archivist hisses. The passenger, now rapidly losing its form like a broken spell, answers in static. **“Yes.”**

“ _Why are you doing this?_ ”

**“We had some things to pry out of you.”**

“ _Why did you take Martin’s form?_ ”

The shape vibrates in laughter. **“I didn’t.”** Then it makes a vicious, threatening smile, its shadow augmented. **“ _You_ chose him.” **It devours the now useless façade surrounding them. **“All I did was playing the role.”**

 

 

 

[CLICK]

 

[THE ARCHIVIST JOLTS AWAKE]

 

[RUSTLING NOISE]

 

[THE ARCHIVIST FINDS A MUSIC BOX PLANTED UNDERNEATH THE BED]

 

 

**ARCHIVIST**

 

[Coldly] It was you.

 

 

[SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS]

 

[SOMETHING BREAKS INTO PIECES]

 

[A DRAWER OPENS]

 

[SOUND OF A PHONE CALL GOING INTO VOICEMAIL]

 

 

**ARCHIVIST**

 

[Exhausted] ...Martin.

 

[CLICK]


End file.
